On Ferguson and beyond: “Itemizing Atrocity”

I was invited by Mariame Kaba, founding director of Project Nia in Chicago, to co-author an essay for Jacobin on the protests against the police killing of Michael Brown and the ensuing militarized police occupation in Ferguson. In our essay “Itemizing Atrocity,” Kaba and I address the visibility of Black suffering and the politics of empathy. Specifically, we question the emphasis on the militarization of policing as the problem in Ferguson and beyond.